As consumer electronics continue to decrease in cost and increase in reliability and features provided, their use in many consumer products becomes more practical, and even desirable. One factor contributing to the acceptability of electronic controls in many consumer products, including consumer home appliances, is that the population as a whole are becoming more computer literate and used to electronic displays and push button controls. No longer are consumers turned off by electronic displays and control systems in favor of their electromechanical counterparts. Indeed, consumers have come to demand increased sophistication in the cycles provided by their appliances.
To meet this demand, many manufacturers are now providing multi-functional electronic controls in their consumer appliances. As an added benefit of these electronic controls manufacturers are able to incorporate intelligence into the controls that can detect and diagnose problems with the appliance. This functionality greatly reduces the service time required to diagnose a problem with an appliance by a service technician when a problem with the appliance occurs. Unfortunately, most consumer appliances do not include an easy means to display this diagnostic information, including product failures, to a homeowner or a service technician. Adding such a user interface display to many of these appliances is not cost effective. In order to relay this diagnostic information to the service personnel, many such appliances are integrating communications capability, either wired or wireless interfaces, to allow the system diagnostic information to be provided to the service technician. Unfortunately, most consumers do not have the equipment necessary to download this diagnostic information from the appliance, and therefore must resort to prior troubleshooting methods if they wish to maintain their appliance themselves, or must call a service technician.
There exists, therefore, a need in the art for an easy to use user interface in the home that includes a means to display the diagnostic data provided by the appliance without requiring the purchase of stand alone diagnostic tools as used by a typical service technician.